Between November 1 and March 31, both parking and entrance are still free. No barriers, fences etc. anywhere, just no one in the collection hut and also on the parking lots right after Napoleon's bridge it's clearly written that there is no parking fee in this period, even Easypark wants to charge 0.00€ for those parking lots. And there were no tourists at all, actually I only met a few farmers and cows around Magozd (where I went from the waterfall on the thematic path "Along the Soča through the Kobarid Gorge", designed by the Soča Valley Association) and that was really it. On some foreign forums, the possibility of avoiding the entrance fee is mentioned, to turn left towards Magozd at the smaller waterfall, on the meadow then somehow find the path that descends into the gorge a bit behind the ticket collectors. I wanted to use that for a shortcut to Magozd, but somewhere on the border between forest and meadow there's a fence with a sign about private property. Obviously someone had enough of those freeloaders trampling....
I was there today, approx. 24h after heavy rain. I'm interested if there were any "extraordinary conditions" compared to usual. Soča was definitely a muddier daughter of the mountains (I liked the Kozjak stream better), the smaller waterfall was noticeably fuller than in promotional materials, the larger one not really (unless part of it was hidden behind the crack), but the pool was noticeably more foamy.
But the path to the larger one was by no means easy. After the hut first a half-bridge that goes somehow to the middle of the streambed, there we walk on stones in it (we know how slippery they can be when wet), luckily intuition suggested I put on high "top sh*t" shoes "for Krn or even higher" and I used their waterproofness. Then back on the other half-bridge to the same bank, then almost via ferrata, i.e. "cable" above the streambed (if the water at the edge was at least a bit shallower, I'd rather step into it) and such that it took quite some experience (thank god for some Italian soles with yellow-orange octagonal logo, probably would have thought about using SVK if I had it), so I didn't involuntarily bathe in the stream and somehow reached that final scenic "balcony". Seriously, if things are only half like that even in summer, how do all those hordes of tourists (probably not so "extremely" equipped) manage to get there at all. And no warnings on info boards anywhere (except not to litter and destroy nature), on the other hand Police in connection with GRS likes to put up warnings about proper equipment even on technically less demanding paths in the Alps.
A few unprocessed pics from the gorge and maybe someone says how extreme the conditions were.